//A suggested [[wiki:requirements-commons|requirement]] for a living knowledge commons wiki//

====== Access control ======

The page owner(s) should be able to control permissions for pages: ideally for reading and separately for creating / editing.

===== Why is this desirable? =====

Essential for any restricted or non-public use, and to control editing rights. Without access control, any page is open to abuse. Lack of boundaries here also violates one of Ostrom’s principles.

===== How it could work, and issues =====

Should be fairly obvious for anyone who has implemented this kind of thing (not me).

And – maybe should be a separate point – maybe little or no harm.

===== Evaluation, or existing implementations =====

  * [[Fedwiki]] takes the radical approach of having pages owned by just one person, so there is never any question of access control.
  * [[DokuWiki]] and other wiki systems have various levels of access control.
  * [[MediaWiki]] is designed for open access, and has only limited controls.
  * **Google Docs/Drive** has quite a complex permissions system, perhaps more complex than necessary.